Destiny commands... and imposes a sacred obligation to show up in the face of one's desire for a normal, casual life... there are other forces afoot of which consciousness has only the dimmest of understandings.

As children we listened to the sound of the sea still echoing in the shell we picked up by the shore. That ancestral roar links us to the great sea which surges within us as well.

The act of consciousness is central; otherwise we are overrun by the complexes.

Learning to live with ambiguity is learning to live with how life really is, full of complexities and strange surprises.

In the end, we are only tiny frightened animals, doing our best to survive amid other tiny frightened animals.

One of the most powerful shocks of the Middle Passage is the collapse of our tacit contract with the universe-the assumption that if we act correctly, if we are of good heart and good intentions, things will work out. We assume a reciprocity with the universe. If we do our part, the universe will comply. Many ancient stories, including the Book of Job, painfully reveal the fact that there is no such contract, and everyone who goes through the Middle Passage is made aware of it.

The truth about intimate relationships is that they can never be any better than our relationship with ourselves.